Page 96 of Ashen Souls

Harper sat up straighter, the exhaustion from earlier gone. “Well. That settles that.”

“Settles what?” I asked, already bracing myself.

“Cancel whatever you were planning to do with your Monday. Tomorrow is officially a road trip.”

“Maybe the owner knows something,” I said. “Where it came from. Who brought it in. Anything.”

Harper nodded. “Antiquarians always know more than they put on their websites. Half their job is pretending not to be historians.”

I closed the laptop.

Harper scooped up her tote bag from the floor. “Right. I’m going home. If we're interrogating an antique dealer tomorrow, I need a solid eight hours of sleep. I'll pick you up at ten. Coffee first. Cursed jewelry second.”

“Priorities,” I agreed.

She paused with her hand on the doorknob. “You okay?”

I touched my left sleeve, my fingers pressing over the brand.

“No. But at least I'm not just waiting anymore.”

She nodded once. “That’ll do for now.”

With Harper gone, the apartment felt as though someone had pulled the plug on the evening.

I went to bed, but sleep was a lost cause.

I spent hours tracking the shadows across the plaster above my bed, my mind running in endless loops. Every time I closed my eyes, the image of the ring flashed back.

But it wasn't just the trip to Blackmere keeping me awake.

It was Daeren.

I lay there half the night, strung tight with anticipation, watching the corners of my bedroom. I kept waiting for the darkness to pool and thicken, for that invisible tether to snap tight and drag me straight back to him. Every shift in the draft felt like a prelude to him stepping out of the shadows.

I couldn't lie to myself. I missed it. I missed him.

Knowing he was real, knowing that intensity actually existed, had ruined my tolerance for normal life. There was a reckless, exhausted part of me that didn't care about histories or long-dead wars. That part wanted to give up. To let him take over and completely swallow me.

It would have been so easy to surrender to it. But the remaining shred of my self-preservation was terrified.

I didn’t know what he actually wanted from me. I didn’t know how deeply we were bound, or what the terms of this connection were. Whatever tied us together was intentional, and I refused to walk blindly back into the dark just because the trap felt good.

Exhaustion eventually forced me under. I only caught a few fragmented hours of sleep right before dawn.

Daeren didn’t appear. But the anticipation didn't fade. It just sat there with me in the quiet, waiting for morning.

The antiquarian shop in Blackmere opened at eleven.

Harper knocked on my door at exactly ten. I was already in the hallway, coat on, bag packed.

She took one look at my face. “Wow. Did you sleep at all? Or did your shadow stalker make an appearance?”

“No Daeren.” I pulled the door shut behind me. “Only my own brain torturing me for a change.”

She snorted.

We headed downstairs to the bakery for an obscene amount of caffeine. Harper stirred far too much cream into her cup, watching me across the small cafe table.